Birding delights in our own front yard.

With excitement I share with you a gift granted to me, the winter birds that blessed us with their presence this past week. The temperature warmed greatly above zero and as the snow melted flocks of birds we had never noticed in our area arrived to gleam seeds from the cones of the fruitful spruce trees that sport a bumper crop of cones way up top.

There are seven White-winged Crossbills in this photo, but if you can spot five you are doing well as they blend in so fine. The interesting thing I've noticed is this is a mixed flock, there are also Red Crossbills, see below photo. 

The red birds are the males, the yellow greenish birds are females.

Male White-winged Crossbills.

 In The Birds of Alberta book it says they rarely flock together, so I guess we were really given a gift. These birds stayed mostly in the tree tops. Two days later they were back, this time many were feeding on seeds dropped to the ground. 

Crossbills top mandible (jaw, beak) crosses over the lower one. The beak is specifically designed to pry into coniferous cones to gain access to the seeds within. What a wonderful experience to watch this female White-winged Crossbill pry out seeds by jabbing her thin curved beak up under the lip of the cone and wiggle her head back and forth pulling out seeds.

Unique specialty designs of nature these birds are, you can clearly see the beak crosses over itself. Got this shot as the bird hopped under the window I was shooting out of.

Female White-winged Crossbill.

While the females were prying seeds from fallen cones the males were a lazily picking seeds from the ground.

I believe this may be an immature male as his coloration is more orange than red.

Mature White-winged Crossbills were elusive as they took flight at the slightest noise so I was lucky to get this clear shot of one on the sidewalk.

Male Red Crossbill, notice no wing bars and softer coloration.

Female Red Crossbill posing on the gutter just above where I was standing. A female flew down and landed two feet away from my head, I held my breath in awe, a gift to behold close up. She peered into my eyes, cocked her head, then took to the air. sigh.

Where the melting snow puddled in the gutter the Crossbills took turns bathing.

May you enjoy the gift of these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them. 

How to beat the winter blahs

Looking at all the beautiful native flower photos I have taken and remembering the warmth of the sun helps chase away the dreary feeling I get from being trapped inside while the snow falls outside.

Wishing everyone a blessed New Year filled with health and joy.

Bear Bear Bear

This post was written awhile back but for some reason it never posted.

I'm  being inspired by bears we watched last spring in Waterton Lakes National Park. It was a wonderful chilly drizzly windy with periods of sunshine kinda week spent admiring the remote beauty as mountains drifted in and out of sight amongst rain clouds. I love Southern Alberta landscapes where the rolling hills blend up to the mountains. The exception being constant gusting wind everyday, the constant howl does tend to drive one a wee bit crazy after a while.

Though Grizzly were spotted at higher elevations we pretty much stayed to the lower levels aside from one bitter cold windy rainy afternoon at Cameron Lake. We partially hiked the lakeside trail looking for glacier lilies and thankfully found two of the yellow beauties not too far along the trail as we really were not prepared for the extreme wind chill so headed back to the boat rental place to warm up.

With the experience ingrained in my spirit and diverse reference photos to work from I composed a few more bear paintings after finishing "Watching the Hikers" Acrylic, on wrapped canvas, 16x24 inches

"Masked Cinnamon Bear in Wildflower Meadow" 

Acrylic on wrapped canvas, 16x16 inches

I love the face of cinnamon bear as it was dark like a mask. I may at some point do a closer up view of its face but for these paintings the bears are in natural habitat and I want to maintain the impression of being viewed in the wilds, not close up photo-realistic as I tend to do. When out viewing we see form and shape and how light hits that form with contrasted dark shadow. Sometimes the animal is close enough and the light is just right to see their eyes but mostly not. Its more an experience. Excitement increases the adrenaline while almost silent exclamations escape the lips as we breathe out, all the while breathing in the moment, the beauty, the Wow of creation that we are but a tiny part of.

"Rocky Mountain Black Bear"

Acrylic on wrapped canvas, 10 x14 inches

This bear had the most black glossy coat, so shinny and rich looking that I struggled to achieve the look I wanted to portray. Did I get it?

There is one more on the drawing board of a bear I called Saddle Blanket. We watched Saddle Blanket and his/her mom traverse across an open meadow grubbing for roots and bulbs one eve at dusk. The light was fast receding behind the mountain but we were able to watch them for about ten minutes through our camera lens before them ambled over the hilltop out of view. Yes I view distant wildlife through a 300 prime lens; sure wish I could afford a pair of quality binoculars but with limited funds I make do with what I have.

Sayward sunlight

Been off and about for a few months gathering reference material for creative endeavours. Picked up a few cast off tools to try out random marking on metal to get my hand back into print-making seeing as I have some old plates to re-work, alter or complete. It will be a new learning curve working with soy-based inks rather than oil based. Going as non-toxic as possible. Hope to get started next month and will try remember to document the process for future reference.

A few photos gathered while living in a 16 ft trailer for 2. 5 months.

Last Light of the setting sun above.

Below photo is Sayward Morning light enjoyed by a Robin and photographer.

 I quite enjoyed the play of sunlight on the robin while the sun had not yet hit the fence. Below photo is also about how the light was striking the sails.

 Kitty Coleman light.

 Wee bird that I still have to look up its name, but too much to do presently.

 Beauty in closely observed bark.

do you see the Tree Creeper?

Bowser  Bay Bear

Aside from doing photography a new venture akin to the 3.5 year "Nest Project" has been started, though this one involves crocheting small vessels. Thats all I can say about it for now as I've only completed one though have more are in progress.  Have a great day wherever you are.

Was it not complete?

Was it complete? Well no. When I'm not satisfied with the overall look I can't help myself but to jump back in with paint on brush and make changes. At this point in a painting it can go two ways, worse or better. I am happy with all the hours, days that added up to a months worth of work that this painting improved with the extra days work.

this is the last image I posted which at this point I let the painting rest for a week then took another good look at it. Though it probably was good enough, I could see where it could be pushed further and strengthened by adding more darks into shadow areas and scumbling color into the foreground to integrate it into the rest of the painting.

This is the completed painting of "Watching the Hikers" it has since rested for over a week and I see no areas that leave me troubled. Done and ready to sign and get an isolation coat painted on to protect the image from dust.

Have a wonderful day.

Waterton National Park Bear Painting in acrylic from start to finish.

I love bears and I love watching and painting them. Last spring we camped in Waterton to study bears as they grazed on the open mountainside meadows. In all we were blessed with seeing about eight different bears and the meadows were abundant with a blaze of colorful blossoms.

 Mostly I paint tightly with high detail so this time I made a conscious decision to paint in a looser style. Instead of doing a highly detailed drawing onto canvas I only noted the bear and the mountains basic outline with a bit of detail to keep me on track. Keeping with the notion for my brush strokes to have more freedom I painted standing up, normally I sit while painting. Mixing a good quantity of acrylic gel into the paints brushed on with a one inch brush in a very loose manner to cover the canvas gives an initial color tone.

 The next step was to mix color with less gel though still keeping the colors washy yet darker tone shaping the forms with paint. The colors are Liquitex Cadmium red med hue, cadmium yellow light hue and Ultramarine blue (green shade) as well as titanium white mixed in to shape the moody spring sky that blends into the snow ridges on the mountain. I always use quality paints and high quality canvas to work on. It costs more but is well worth the extra dollars spent.

 Adding more paint and less gel the painting advances as more detail is added. Greens are all made up of blends of Cadmium yellow and ultramarine blue with varying touches of red to tone and mute some areas.

 I now push the paintbrush flowers with vivid pure strokes of cad red & cad yellow and add white to ultramarine to define the blue flower shapes.

 Passages of gray tones are created using the primary colors to add depth to effectively push the lighter mountains back into the distance. With a touch of burt sienna into the ultramarine the foreground is glazed to tone down some areas and some of the paintbrush flowers are toned down.

 The completed painting converted to black and white on the computer to check tonal balance.

The painting is complete, at least at this point I believe it to be. I will leave off painting at this point and see how I like it a week from now. Sometimes I get too close to a piece and don't see the flaws till later so its best to leave it alone and work on the next. Actually I work on up to three paintings at a time  bouncing back and forth between them. If I get stuck on what to do next I switch to another to keep the momentum going, well thats the theory if alls going well. This painting which is 16x 20 inches took about one week to produce. Title which came to me as I was painting is "Watching the Hikers"

Drawing the mountain

Haiku to you

Haiku # Three

I'm quite enjoying pairing freeform Haiku with photography. 

I wish you joy and blessing.

Haiku in the Mountains

After spending 4 nights at Waterton Lakes At Crandell Mountain campsite I have been inspired and refreshed by nature. Stirrings long and deep have surfaced as free-form Haiku. Now I've never considered myself a poet till the nest project of working with natural materials begged for poetic titles. Titles, some of which needed as much contemplation as the works themselves.

So in combination with photos taken I present to you a few poems.

Enjoy, and please do share if you wish.

Playing catch-up, Dinosaur Provincial Park

My intent of posting photos from camping areas this summer has already gotten a bit behind as I realized I have yet to post photos from Dinosaur Park and Emerson Bridge where we camped June long weekend.

Dinosaur Provincial Park.

From atop the Prairies looking down into the carved out canyon of the Red Deer River system.

Many dinosaur fossils have been uncovered in this area, but old bones don't call out to me, what does though are the fascinating carved structures and the bright, almost glowing orange lichen encrusted rocks and the subtle variations of sandstone.

 Lark Sparrow

 As having a passion for sculpture, viewing the sculptures of Creation is breathtaking.

 One of the many small blossoms of spring in the desert, though we were too early for cactus blooms.

 Variation in coloration to delight the senses.

 Swallowtail Butterfly

 Meadowlark hilltop performance.

 Typical scrub brush for the dry desert area.

Stand-alone formations. There is a neat pyramid rock in the badlands but we were getting hungry for supper and headed back to our camp at Emerson Bridge so didn't get the chance to go visit it. There is a campground at Dinosaur Provincial Park down by the river but I don't do well in the heat and it was getting quite warm already when we visited the park in June. The campground looked pretty full when we were there so I was happy to be camped elsewhere in the shade of the big cottonwoods as I enjoy solitude and quiet.